The salvage yard looked like a crime scene under floodlights.
Mud churned into ruts by work rigs. Cables snaked across puddles that reflected harsh white beams. The downed Marauder lay behind a temporary fence like a dead animal too big to drag away—torso shattered, limbs half-buried, rainwater running through breaks in its armor and out again in thin black streams.
Dack heard Holt's perimeter sensors *before* he saw the movement.
A tight chirp in his cockpit, then the yard cameras catching shadows that didn't belong—low shapes creeping in along the fence line, keeping to blind angles, timing steps with thunder.
Not militia.
Not workers.
The kind of people who moved like they'd practiced moving in other people's spaces.
Dack's Dire Wolf stepped out of its bay with a wet, heavy pull as its feet tore free of the mud. The Daishi's silhouette swallowed floodlight beams and threw them back as fractured glare. In the rain, it looked less like a machine and more like a shape the world shouldn't have.
Holt's voice snapped across comms. "They're inside the perimeter—multiple contacts—fast—Dack, we've got cutters on the Marauder—"
"Keep your people down," Dack said, calm and cold. "I'm handling it."
He didn't want militia rifles firing blindly into the salvage yard. Not with fuel lines, power conduits, and civilians watching from behind shelter walls.
He advanced.
A shadow bolted between two work rigs—too quick to be a man.
His sensors resolved it: a light 'Mech, crouched low, using industrial equipment as cover. Another heat bloom flashed farther back—second machine—plus a scatter of human signatures, small and fast.
Not a raid.
A theft.
Dack hated thieves more than fighters. Fighters believed in something, even if it was wrong. Thieves just believed in taking.
He rotated the Dire Wolf's torso and *opened* the engagement the same way he'd opened East Pit: with force that said "leave now," not "let's negotiate."
A missile ripple hissed out into the rain and detonated across the mud between the intruders and the Marauder's head.
Earth jumped. Puddles turned to steam. Shrapnel rattled off the work rigs like hail.
The human signatures scattered instantly—dark shapes sprinting for cover, cutters dropped, tools abandoned.
One of the light 'Mechs tried to dash through the smoke anyway, probably thinking speed was still a shield.
Dack answered with a tight burst from his autocannons, walking impacts into the ground just ahead of its feet—forcing it to juke, forcing it to slow. When it slowed, he carved a single clean laser line across its leg plating, not to kill it, but to make running expensive.
The light 'Mech stumbled, metal screaming, then lurched behind a crane arm.
The second 'Mech popped up on the far side, trying to cover the humans' retreat, its weapon fire snapping against the Dire Wolf's armor in sharp, angry flashes.
Dack didn't care about the sting.
He stepped forward again, each footfall making the salvage yard tremble, and fired another controlled volley—missiles to flush, autocannon to pin, then a precise laser cut to force the second machine to back off.
It did.
But the humans hadn't come for the whole Marauder.
They'd come for one thing.
The Marauder's head.
A team of cutters—three, maybe four—had already breached the cockpit access panel. Sparks flew in frantic bursts as they tried to detach the black box, the neuro-helmet mount, anything with data.
Holt's militia shouted warnings from behind cover.
The cutters didn't stop.
Dack turned the Dire Wolf's shadow over them.
He didn't fire.
Instead, he spoke through external speakers—voice amplified into a low, unavoidable rumble that made even the rain sound small.
"Drop the tools."
One cutter froze. Another kept cutting anyway, hands shaking.
Dack took one step closer.
Mud surged around the Dire Wolf's foot like a wave.
"Drop," he repeated.
The cutter finally looked up, face pale under a helmet lamp. He saw the Dire Wolf. He saw the distance closing. He saw the futility.
He dropped the torch.
The others followed—tools clattering into mud.
Good.
Dack hated killing people on foot. It felt too easy.
He was about to order Holt's people forward to secure them when every floodlight in the yard flickered.
Just once.
A stutter of power like someone had stepped on the station's throat.
Then a new heat signature bloomed at the yard's edge—big, bright, and moving with deliberate confidence.
A heavy shape climbed the outer berm like it didn't care about fences, mud, or the fact that it was stepping into someone else's contract zone.
Dack's HUD resolved it as it crested into the floodlights:
Highlander HGN-732.
An Inner Sphere assault 'Mech—tall, broad, built like a fortress with legs. It carried itself differently than the pirate machines. Not twitchy. Not hungry.
Confident.
It dropped down into the yard with a heavy splash of mud that sprayed up around its feet like a crown. The machine's head turned, scanning, and then it looked straight at Dack's Dire Wolf.
A voice came over open comms—female, bright, amused, and entirely too casual for a battlefield.
"Well, hello there."
Dack didn't respond.
The voice continued, like it enjoyed the silence. "You're even bigger in person. I thought that was a myth mercs told each other to justify charging extra."
Talia's voice cut into Dack's internal channel, sharp. "That's not Ash Hounds. That's a professional."
"I see her," Dack replied.
The Highlander pilot laughed softly over comms. "Ooh. Two channels. Someone's organized."
Then, louder—broadcasting to the yard—she said, "Tell your militia to hold their fire. Unless they want their equipment to become modern art."
Holt shouted something over her own channel, furious and scared.
Dack held up a hand from inside the Dire Wolf cockpit—an instinctive gesture Holt couldn't see but his people did, because the Daishi's massive arm lifted slightly, palm open.
The militia hesitated.
Dack keyed open comms, voice flat. "Identify."
"Name's Jinx," the woman said brightly. "Or you can call me 'the lady about to make your life complicated.' Either works."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "You're here to steal."
"Oh, no," Jinx said, offended. "Stealing is for amateurs. I'm here to collect. There's a difference."
The Highlander took one slow step forward, sinking into mud like it owned the yard. The light 'Mechs and cutters that had been raiding suddenly looked like small prey sheltering behind a predator that had just arrived.
Jinx's voice warmed, almost playful. "But I see you already chased my little raccoons off the shiny thing. So. New plan."
Dack didn't like plans he wasn't part of.
"What plan," he said.
"A duel," Jinx answered immediately, as if she'd been waiting to say it.
The yard went still in a strange way—rain still falling, machinery humming, but people holding their breath. Even the cutters stopped moving, frozen between fear of Dack and fear of the Highlander.
Jinx continued, cheerful and crisp. "One-on-one. Your Dire Wolf versus my Highlander. No militia interference. No raccoons. Just you and me."
Dack's mouth tightened. "Why."
Jinx made a little sound that might've been a smile. "Because my employer wanted your machine, and I'm not dragging it out of here while you're still breathing."
Dack's eyes went colder. "Who's your employer."
"Ah-ah," Jinx chided. "That's not how bargaining works. You get the name *after* we do the fun part."
Talia cut into internal comms again, tense. "Don't do it. She's trying to isolate you."
Dack stared at the Highlander's stance. It wasn't aggressive. It was poised. Balanced. Ready.
A pilot who could stand that relaxed in front of a Dire Wolf was either insane or very good.
Dack didn't like the idea of letting her walk away with whatever she came to collect.
But he liked even less the idea of a full yard brawl with militia and civilians nearby.
A duel gave him control.
It also gave him a chance to break the chain that fed the Ash Hounds.
He opened comms. "Terms."
Jinx's voice brightened like a kid hearing a favorite song. "Ooh! Yes. Terms."
She paused, then said, almost ceremonially: "If you win, I become your bondsman. Voluntary. Honor-bound. I give you my employer's name and everything I know. I follow you until you release me."
The cutters murmured nervously. Holt cursed under her breath somewhere.
Jinx added quickly, like she knew how it sounded to Inner Sphere ears: "Not a slave thing. Don't get weird. It's a warrior thing."
Dack's voice stayed flat. "And if you win."
Jinx's tone turned sharp for the first time. "Then you come with me. Same oath. Same rules. No harm to your passenger. No harm to civilians. Your Dire Wolf leaves under my escort. You live."
Talia's internal channel went very quiet.
Dack felt her fear like a pressure.
He didn't look away from the Highlander.
"You're confident," he said.
Jinx giggled. "I'm *cute* confident."
Then—deadly calm beneath the humor—she added, "And I don't like losing."
Dack made his decision.
"Move the duel outside the yard," he said. "I'm not fighting next to fuel tanks."
Jinx sounded delighted. "He sets boundaries. I love that."
The Highlander turned smoothly, already moving, mud splashing from its feet. "East drainage flats," she said. "Open ground. Slag hills for cover. Nice and romantic."
Dack didn't respond to the "romantic." He just marched the Dire Wolf forward, keeping the Highlander in his sights while Holt's militia rushed in to secure the cutters and the downed pirate lights.
Talia's voice came through the internal channel, low and tight. "You're really doing this."
"It's the cleanest option," Dack said.
"It's a trap," Talia insisted.
Dack's jaw clenched. "Everything is a trap. I'm choosing the trap I can see."
A pause.
Then Talia said, quieter, "Don't lose."
Dack didn't answer.
He couldn't promise that.
---
The drainage flats were a wide stretch of churned earth and shallow water channels, bordered by slag hills that rose like broken teeth. Floodlights from the refinery and salvage yard painted the storm in pale streaks. The mud out here was worse—less compacted, more hungry.
Perfect for making heavy machines stumble.
Perfect for a Highlander that could use vertical movement and angles.
Dack stopped the Dire Wolf at one end of the flats. The Highlander faced him from the other, rain sliding off its armor plates in rivers.
Jinx's voice came over open comms again, brighter than it should've been. "Okay, big guy. We doing a countdown or are we both adults here?"
Dack's voice was cold. "Start when you want."
"Oh, bold," Jinx purred. "I like bold."
Then the Highlander moved.
Not charging in a straight line—too smart for that. It advanced at an angle, using a slag hill as partial cover while probing Dack's range with disciplined long-range fire. The first impacts slammed into the Dire Wolf's forward armor in bright bursts, forcing Dack's heat to tick upward.
Dack answered with a mixed opening—missiles to force her to keep moving, followed by autocannon bursts that chewed at the ground near her feet and the slag hill's edge, trying to herd her into a predictable lane.
Jinx didn't give him one.
She cut left, then right, using the mud like she understood it intimately—stepping where the ground was firmer, avoiding puddles deep enough to swallow ankles. Her gait was controlled, the kind of walking that looked almost casual until you realized every step was calculated.
Dack advanced anyway, steady as a tide.
He wasn't trying to win on the first exchange.
He was trying to read her.
Jinx shifted tactics suddenly, pushing forward aggressively, closing range while snapping off a heavy kinetic punch that thudded into Dack's armor with a brutal sound. Immediately after, she layered in another burst—energy and metal mixing—trying to spike heat and force Dack to choose between closing too fast or backing up.
Dack didn't back up.
He rotated the Dire Wolf's torso and returned pressure in a tight pattern—medium-range laser cuts to peel armor when she exposed it, autocannon bursts to punish her legs when she tried to plant and trade.
Jinx laughed over comms even as her Highlander took hits.
"Oooh, you're not just a statue," she said. "That's disappointing. I was ready to bully you."
Dack didn't answer.
He watched her Highlander's leg movements.
Watched how she shifted weight.
Watched for the moment her mud discipline slipped.
And then she did something that made Dack's instincts flare:
She jumped.
The Highlander's jump jets lit, blasting mud and water outward in a violent halo as the assault 'Mech vaulted over a shallow channel and landed closer than it should've been able to, using vertical movement to cut distance and change angle.
A Highlander that could jump well was a nightmare—because it could do what assault 'Mechs weren't supposed to do: reposition quickly.
She landed and immediately hammered Dack at close range with a brutal combination—shaking the Dire Wolf's frame and forcing Dack to compensate with gyro corrections and micro-thruster puffs.
Dack's heat climbed.
His armor status ticked down.
Jinx pressed, relentless now, the playful tone fading into focused aggression.
"You're big," she said, voice tight. "But big bleeds like anything else."
Dack felt a grim smile pull at the inside of his jaw.
Good.
She was good.
The best he'd faced since leaving the shadow war behind.
He changed gears.
He stopped trying to "trade" and started trying to trap.
He fell back two steps—slowly, deliberately—toward a patch of ground he'd spotted earlier: a wide, dark puddle where the mud was deeper, where even the Dire Wolf's massive feet had sunk an inch farther.
Jinx saw the retreat and took it as weakness.
She surged forward, cocky again. "Oh? Giving ground? Are you blushing?"
Talia's voice cut into Dack's internal channel, urgent. "She's going to—"
"I know," Dack muttered.
Jinx jumped again, trying to land to Dack's flank and rake into his weaker armor.
Dack waited until she committed—until the Highlander was mid-arc and couldn't change its landing point.
Then he loosed a missile ripple—not at her torso, but at the ground where she was about to land, turning that patch of mud into a violent churn of explosions and flying sludge.
The Highlander hit the ground in destabilized muck.
Its foot sank deeper than expected.
Its weight shifted wrong.
Just a fraction.
Dack punished fractions.
He followed immediately with focused autocannon bursts into the Highlander's leg plating—short, disciplined, not wasting ammunition, not chasing the head. Legs first. Mobility first.
The Highlander lurched, gyro fighting.
Jinx grunted—a real sound, not playful now.
"Okay," she said, strained. "That was rude."
Dack advanced, pressing the Dire Wolf's mass into the Highlander's space, using short laser cuts to strip exposed seams while keeping the autocannons biting at her legs whenever she tried to pivot out.
Jinx tried to counter—swinging her Highlander's fire up into Dack's torso, punishing him with heavy hits that made the cockpit shudder. She was still dangerous. Still lethal.
But her footing was compromised now.
Dack could see it.
Her steps were smaller.
Her turns less clean.
Her jump jets lit—but she didn't jump. She couldn't risk landing wrong again.
That hesitation was everything.
Dack closed and rammed—shoulder to chest—using the Dire Wolf like a battering ram. The impact sent both machines sinking deeper into mud, water sloshing up around their feet.
Jinx cursed—then, unbelievably, laughed.
"Oh my god," she panted over comms. "You're close. I can feel you. This is—"
"Focus," Dack snapped.
Jinx made a small, offended sound. "Yes, sir."
Then she tried one last desperate maneuver—twisting her Highlander to bring her heaviest fire straight into Dack's center mass at point-blank range.
Dack didn't let her complete it.
He drove the Dire Wolf's weight down and forward and hammered her crippled leg again, then followed with a short-range volley that punched into the damaged joint and finally broke it.
The Highlander collapsed to one knee, mud erupting around it.
Jinx's Highlander tried to rise.
It couldn't.
Dack stepped in and leveled his guns at the Highlander's torso—enough to end it, if he wanted.
He didn't fire.
He held.
"Shut down," he ordered.
For a long second, there was only rain and the hiss of hot metal cooling.
Then Jinx's voice came, quieter now, real. "You won."
The Highlander's reactor output dropped.
The machine powered down with a heavy, defeated sigh.
Dack exhaled slowly, heat bleeding down, heart still pounding.
He keyed open comms. "Terms."
Jinx's voice returned, steady despite the loss. "Terms."
A hatch on the Highlander opened.
A woman climbed out into the rain.
She moved like someone used to the cockpit—confident and athletic—until her boots hit the mud.
Then she immediately slipped.
She windmilled her arms, tried to recover, failed, and landed on her ass with a wet *splat* right under her own 'Mech.
Dack stared.
Talia's voice in internal comms went flat with disbelief. "That… is your duelist?"
Jinx looked up from the mud, soaked, hair plastered to her face, and grinned like it was the funniest thing in the world.
"Hi," she called up at the Dire Wolf. "Still hot when you're towering over me."
Dack stayed silent.
Jinx pushed herself up, slipped again, caught herself on the Highlander's leg like it was a dance partner. "Okay," she announced, voice bright, "I am a graceful warrior goddess and nobody can prove otherwise."
She trudged forward through mud toward Dack's Dire Wolf, apparently unconcerned about the fact that she'd just lost a duel and walked right up to the machine that could crush her into paste.
Dack opened the Dire Wolf's external speakers. "Stop there."
Jinx stopped immediately—obedient, but with a mischievous tilt to her expression. She saluted with two fingers, then remembered she was covered in mud and made a face.
"Fine," she said. "Boundary respected. You're very responsible. It's attractive."
Talia made a noise on internal comms that sounded like a choke.
Dack ignored it.
He powered down enough to open his cockpit and descended the ladder cautiously, boots hitting mud with a wet pull. Rain hit his face like cold needles.
Up close, Jinx was… not what her Highlander had implied.
In the cockpit, she'd been cold competence wrapped in playful comms.
On the ground, she was a walking disaster with bright eyes and too much energy, like her body didn't have the same discipline her mind did.
She stood at attention—then immediately sneezed, slipped a little, and pretended it hadn't happened.
"I uphold the bond," she said, suddenly formal. "You win. I become your bondsman."
Dack stared at her. "You volunteered that wager."
Jinx nodded. "Yep."
"You understand what it means."
Jinx nodded again, then leaned forward slightly, stage-whispering like she was sharing a secret. "It means I'm stuck with you until you release me. Which is—honestly—kinda thrilling. I've never had a boss who could literally step on my problems."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "Keep it professional."
Jinx gasped, hand to chest. "I am professional."
Then she added immediately, grinning, "Professionally perverted."
Dack pinched the bridge of his nose.
Talia's voice snapped into his internal channel. "Absolutely not."
Dack didn't answer her yet. He was still assessing this new variable standing in the mud.
"You were hired," he said to Jinx.
Jinx's grin softened into something sharper. "Yes."
"By who."
Jinx's expression turned almost respectful, like she knew this was the real price of the duel. "I was hired through a procurement broker. Payments routed through shell accounts. Clean. Boring."
Dack's jaw tightened. "Name."
Jinx's gaze flicked toward the refinery lights, then back to Dack. "Elias Kess."
The name hit Dack like cold water under armor.
Kess.
A thread from the shadow war.
A name that didn't belong in a backwater basin unless someone was making it belong.
Talia's voice came in tight and bitter. "Of course."
Dack kept his face still. "How do you know it was him."
Jinx shrugged, then slipped again, caught herself, and continued like it was normal. "Because I met his representative in person. Not Kess himself—he doesn't get his boots dirty. But the rep said the name out loud like it was a blessing and a threat." She tilted her head. "And because he wanted you specifically."
Dack's eyes went colder. "Why."
Jinx's grin returned, smaller now. "Because you're Dack Jarn. Because you have a Dire Wolf. Because you're inconvenient."
Dack didn't like hearing his own name in someone else's mouth like it was a bounty.
Jinx continued, bright again as if darkness bored her. "The job was: keep the basin unstable, make the municipal authority desperate, let the Ash Hounds chew the edges. And if the Daishi showed up, test you. If you were weak, take you."
She tapped her temple. "He expected you to be tired."
Dack's mouth tightened. "And if you won."
Jinx's eyes glittered. "Then I'd bring you in alive. He likes leverage more than corpses."
Talia's voice in internal comms went icy. "He wants to own you."
Dack didn't respond, but the anger settled deeper in his ribs.
He looked at Jinx. "Your real name."
She blinked, then smiled wider. "Kiera Mallory. But 'Jinx' is way more fun."
Dack stared at her for a long moment. "You fought like an ace."
Kiera—Jinx—brightened, like he'd offered candy. "Thank you! I practiced. Like, a lot. Also I'm very motivated by spite."
Dack's eyes narrowed. "Why take the bond wager."
For the first time, her humor softened into something almost honest. "Because I'm tired of working for people who treat everyone like tools. And because…" She glanced at the Dire Wolf looming behind Dack. "…I wanted to see if you were real."
Dack didn't like being tested.
But he respected someone who kept their word after losing.
He looked toward the ridge where Holt's floodlights flickered.
"Marshal Holt will want you in restraints," he said.
Jinx nodded immediately. "That's fair."
Then she added, eyes bright: "Depending on the restraints, that could be—"
"Stop," Dack said.
Jinx pressed her lips together, trying not to smile, failing completely. "Yes, sir."
Dack turned slightly, keying internal comms. "Talia. Meet me at the yard gate. Bring Holt. And—" he hesitated, then added, "—stay close."
Talia's voice came back, tight. "I'm already moving."
---
By the time they returned to the salvage yard, militia had the cutters face-down in mud, hands zip-tied, heads bowed. Holt stood near the fence with two troopers, face hard and rain-slick.
Her eyes snapped to Jinx.
"What is that?" Holt demanded.
Jinx waved cheerfully. "Hi! I'm the problem and also the solution."
Holt's jaw dropped slightly, then snapped shut. "Dack—"
"She challenged me," Dack said. "One-on-one. She lost. She's bound by oath."
Holt stared like she didn't know whether to laugh or scream. "That's not… that's not a legal—"
"It's an agreement," Dack cut in. "And she has a name."
Holt's expression tightened. "What name."
Dack held her gaze. "Elias Kess."
Holt went very still.
Even a municipal marshal on a backwater world knew what it meant when off-world money moved in shadows.
Holt exhaled slowly. "We can't fight that."
Dack's voice went cold. "We can bleed it."
Jinx leaned forward slightly, whispering loudly like she couldn't help herself. "He's very intense. I love it."
Talia appeared at Holt's side, hood down, face hard, eye sharp. She looked at Jinx like she was a problem that might bite.
Jinx noticed immediately and grinned. "Ohhhh. You're the passenger. Hi. I promise I'm only like… medium dangerous outside my 'Mech."
Talia didn't smile. "You were trying to steal from us."
Jinx shrugged. "I was hired. Now I'm not."
Talia's eye narrowed. "People don't just 'not' do that."
Jinx's grin softened. "Some do. When they get tired."
Dack watched the exchange, noting how Talia held herself—protective, suspicious. Not collapsing inward like she used to.
Good.
He turned to Holt. "Secure the cutters. Secure her Highlander. I want the comm cache logs pulled tonight. And I want to know when Kess's next pickup is."
Holt swallowed. "We don't have the resources—"
Jinx raised a hand brightly. "I do! I mean, I *did.* But I remember the schedule."
Dack looked at her. "You're going to give it."
Jinx nodded quickly. "Yep. Because you won. And because I'm weirdly invested in not being an accessory to whatever he's building."
Holt stared at Dack. "You're really keeping her."
Dack's jaw tightened. "I'm not keeping anyone. She's under my protection and my control until I decide otherwise."
Talia's voice was quiet but sharp. "Control."
Dack looked at her and understood what the word meant to someone like Talia. He lowered his voice slightly. "Rules. Boundaries. Accountability. Not chains."
Talia held his gaze for a moment, then looked away—accepting it, but not comfortable.
Jinx, meanwhile, was bouncing slightly on her heels like she'd just joined a party. She leaned toward Dack and stage-whispered, "If you ever *do* want chains, I have—"
Dack cut her off without looking at her. "You're going to learn when to stop talking."
Jinx beamed. "Yes, sir."
Holt rubbed her forehead like she was developing a headache in real time. "Fine. We'll detain her under municipal authority. You'll vouch she won't bolt."
Jinx raised two fingers solemnly. "I swear on my cockpit dignity."
Talia muttered, "That's not a real thing."
Jinx gasped. "How dare you. It's the realest thing I have."
Dack almost smiled.
Almost.
He didn't trust how easily the atmosphere changed with her humor. It felt like a mask.
But he'd seen her in the duel.
He'd seen the discipline.
The competence.
And he'd seen her honor her word.
That was more than most people ever did.
Dack looked at the downed Marauder again, then at the muddy fence line where thieves had tried to pull its secrets free.
Kess was reaching into Garnet Ridge.
Reaching into Dack's contract.
Reaching into Dack's life.
Now Dack had a new piece on the board: a Highlander pilot who fought like an ace, laughed like an idiot, and had just sworn herself into his orbit.
A loyal problem.
A dangerous ally.
And the first crack in the funding chain that fed the Ash Hounds.
Dack exhaled slowly.
"Alright," he said, voice low. "Next move."
Jinx leaned in, eyes bright. "Ooo. We're doing moves. I love moves."
Talia stared at her like she'd been cursed.
Holt looked like she wanted to resign.
And Dack—Dack felt the cold focus settle back into place.
Because the quiet days were over.